Good Practice Guide
The Good Practice Guide has been created to disseminate good practice at the University identified in, amongst other things, UQA reports and course review reports. Identifying good practice is an important part of the University quality and standards mechanisms as we seek to continually improve and enhance the high quality of educational provision across all campuses.
Unlike the Quality Manual, implementation of the Good Practice Guide is not mandatory for Schools. Schools are requested, though, to give careful consideration to adopting the practice in the Good Practice Guide where these are appropriate.
Members of the University are invited to contact the Academic Services Division if they would like to suggest additional areas of good practice that should be disseminated across the University. Further examples of good practice, including videos of staff teaching, case studies and talking points, are available from the University's Teaching website.
Course Handbooks
The University has agreed that there should be a minimum level of information which must be provided for undergraduate and postgraduate students about their chosen programme of study and, that students should know at the start of their course, how their courses will be taught and assessed. The Quality Manual lists information which School/teaching groups should supply and some suggestions for layout and style.
Plagiarism
The following are examples of guidance on plagiarism for students:
Curriculum Maps
Curriculum Maps should be completed as part of the process of developing a Programme Specification.
The learning outcomes of the course should be mapped against the modules comprising the course. You may use either the standard grid, one of the example formats below, or a grid of your own devising for this purpose.
The curriculum map should show that a student cannot successfully complete the course without having acquired all the learning outcomes listed in Section D of the Programme Specification. This can be demonstrated by ensuring that for each learning outcome there is at least one compulsory, non-compensatable module which delivers that outcome; or that the outcome features in a range of modules, such that it would not be possible for the student to complete the course without passing at least one of those modules.
The example Curriculum Maps below cover a range of styles and courses:
Disability Support
Learning Community Forum (LCF)
The purposes of the LCF are to ensure that the views of students are given proper weight in the processes of course and module review, and to ensure that the concerns of students about their courses of study are represented to the academic staff throughout the academic year.
Policy
It is University policy that there must be at least one Learning Community Forum (LCF) in each School and that it should meet at least once each Semester.
Good Practice
Examples of Good Practice include:
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holding at least 3 LCFs a year
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for large cohorts holding undergraduate and postgraduate LCFs
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weekly meetings between the Director of Studies and the (student) Chair of the UG LCF
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minutes being published on LCF Workspace as well as noticeboards